Enable iPhone Tethering

Yesterday, Apple officially released the new iPhone OS 3.0 software update, which supports a slew of new features including the long awaited push notification and “catch-up” features such as support for MMS and tethering. Unfortunately, AT&T has said that MMS won't be available on their network until “later this summer” and that tethering will be available eventually.

However, some bright minds have found a way to enable tethering on your iPhone right now, without jailbreaking. Just point your iPhone browser to http://help.benm.at/help.php and you can download and install a new configuration file for your iPhone and carrier. I tried it, and it worked! I was quickly able to setup a tethered Bluetooth connection on my Windows 7 laptop.

How do you enable tethering?

Once you locate the correct configuration for your carrier, download it directly on your iPhone, then reboot your iPhone. When it starts up, go to Settings > General > Network and you'll see an option to enable tethering. Once you've done that, you can establish a tethered connection with your PC or Mac via either USB or Bluetooth. Surfing the web is actually not bad on 3G.

The same site also has the settings for enabling MMS, but I haven't been able to find where to enter them.

Note that you enable tethering at your own risk. AT&T and other carriers may charge you for additional usage, if they figure out how.

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About Jeff Hester

I use technology, community and sound advice to build a better life. I am an advocate for social media and knowledge management, an avid hiker, father, grandfather, husband, author, speaker, dog walker, web developer and damn good listener. You can also find me on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook.

Maj, my personal experience indicates otherwise. All I can say is that it worked for me. I was able to enable tethering and successfully use it on both Windows 7 and Mac OS X. I have an iPhone 3G and I’m on the AT&T network, and it works.

if you have a problem with recieving voicemail after the tether file is installed like me, all i did was bookmark the website i got the file from on my iphone and i simply uninstall the file when im not tethering and reinstall it when i want to tether to my labtop. I know it sounds like a pain but it litteraly takes 5 seconds to install or uninstall the file.
does anyone have an updated version to get mms on iphone 3g, maybe one that doesnt have 20 steps and involve two phones. thanks

“Just point your iPhone browser to http://help.benm.at/help.php and you can download and install a new configuration file for your iPhone and carrier. I tried it, and it worked! I was quickly able to setup a tethered Bluetooth connection on my Windows 7 laptop.”
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